VGA on LCD

Cid Highwind · Post by **Cid Highwind** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 2:22 pm

I haven't had the chance to test it myself but I am really interested in this one. I will be getting myself a nice 20" widescreen TFT somewhere in the future and I'm really curious how Dreamcast games will look on it when hooked up via VGA.

Anyone here who has experience with this? Will running the games on a non-native res mess up the game's graphics or will it create a blur helping to cover up aliasing a bit?

Will these monitors give problems because of the VGA signal being at 60Hz while the LCD having a 75Hz frequency? And how do games without a widescreen option look on these monitors? Will it be messy, stretched or simply centered?

I have seen the HDtv screenshots in another thread, and if a nice TFT pc monitor will give the same effect I should really get one myself rather soon.

Post by **|darc|** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 3:11 pm

I think this really depends on your monitor.

AFAIK, some will display a signal natively (small 640x480 box in the middle of the monitor) or can blow it up to the entire monitor.

I don't think you'll have any problems with refresh rates... And the widescreen thing will depend on your monitor (did any Dreamcast games have widescreen support? I don't think so).

But yeah, I think you're going to have the same experience as with an HDTV. I'll let you know later, I might be purchasing a VGA box later on today for my 19" 1280x1024 LCD.

mankrip · Post by **mankrip** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 3:17 pm

(did any Dreamcast games have widescreen support? I don't think so)

Some games did. Wacky Races for example.

Deth2k7 · Post by **Deth2k7** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 5:43 pm

Didn't MSR have widescreen support? I'm pretty sure Toy Commander did.

Cid Highwind · Post by **Cid Highwind** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 6:21 pm

|darc| wrote:I think this really depends on your monitor.

AFAIK, some will display a signal natively (small 640x480 box in the middle of the monitor) or can blow it up to the entire monitor.

I don't think you'll have any problems with refresh rates... And the widescreen thing will depend on your monitor (did any Dreamcast games have widescreen support? I don't think so).

But yeah, I think you're going to have the same experience as with an HDTV. I'll let you know later, I might be purchasing a VGA box later on today for my 19" 1280x1024 LCD.

Looking forward to hearing your results then

Fragger wrote:
(did any Dreamcast games have widescreen support? I don't think so)
Some games did. Wacky Races for example.

After a quick google the following page came up.

"Dreamcast games that have widescreen options are:
-Donald Duck's Quack Attack
-F355 Challenge
-Metropolis Street Racer (16:9 is an unlockable feature for some odd reason)
-NASCAR Thunder
-Rayman 2
-Star Lancer
-Test Drive V-Rally
-Tokyo Highway Challenge 2
-Toy Commander
-Toy Racer
-Trickstyle
-Wacky Races"

I know Fur Fighters supports it as well.

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Sun Feb 25, 2007 7:07 pm

I know of a few more you can add to the list:

AeroWings
Worms Armageddon
Worms World Party

Gmc · Post by **Gmc** » Mon Feb 26, 2007 1:54 am

DC looks horrible on my 19" widescreen tft monitor...image is stretched and blurry...probably look better on a widescreen game tho.
Yet on my HDTV, it dont look too bad, a lot down to the fact I can set it to 4:3 ratio

RMD · Post by **RMD** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 10:46 am

Gmc wrote:DC looks horrible on my 19" widescreen tft monitor...image is stretched and blurry...probably look better on a widescreen game tho.
Yet on my HDTV, it dont look too bad, a lot down to the fact I can set it to 4:3 ratio

Are you being one of those lamers who watchs there game in a little square in the middle of the tv instead of just streching it?

APE · Post by **APE** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:01 am

RMD wrote:
Gmc wrote:DC looks horrible on my 19" widescreen tft monitor...image is stretched and blurry...probably look better on a widescreen game tho.
Yet on my HDTV, it dont look too bad, a lot down to the fact I can set it to 4:3 ratio
Are you being one of those lamers who watchs there game in a little square in the middle of the tv instead of just streching it?

Stretching=lame. If it's not being filled by a native resolution it won't be filled ever.

Post by **Christuserloeser** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 3:07 pm

What APE said.

RMD · Post by **RMD** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:00 pm

the strech is so tiny from 640x480 to 720x480 really doesnt matter. If your VGA has double lining its not really streching it just doubles every line.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:42 pm

RMD wrote:the strech is so tiny from 640x480 to 720x480 really doesnt matter. If your VGA has double lining its not really streching it just doubles every line.

Most LCD monitors native resolution is close to or around 1280x1024, so that would be a pretty large stretch and make it look pretty bad.

az_bont · Post by **az_bont** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 9:43 pm

RMD wrote:the strech is so tiny from 640x480 to 720x480 really doesnt matter. If your VGA has double lining its not really streching it just doubles every line.

It stretches far more than that. There area number of reasons why the resolution change isn't like that (non-square pixels, overscan, anamorphic stretching), but simply put...

A 16:9 display, when playing a 4:3 Dreamcast game in it's original ratio, will show an image with 1/8th of the width of the display as a border on the left, and another 1/8th on the right. This means that if you want the image to fill the display, you have to stretch it horizontally by 33%.

This is worse for games than it is for movies and television because it skews the movement of your character, so he will often appear to move quicker horizontally than vertically.

Sweater Fish · Post by **Sweater Fish** » Tue Feb 27, 2007 10:26 pm

I don't think that all of those games you guys listed as supporting widescreen will work in widescreen through VGA. Some of them like MSR, aren't true widescreen--their widescreen modes are just a 640x480 image squished in such a way that they'll look right when stretched out to 16:9, but others are actually outputting at a true 16:9 resolution and I doubt that that will display through VGA.

As for the LCD monitor, do they moke ones with a vertical resolution on 960? That combined with a 4:3 mode would solve the native resolution problem.

...word is bondage...

Cid Highwind · Post by **Cid Highwind** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 3:06 pm

I don't think so, 19" usually has a 1440x900 resolution, and 20" has 1680x1050.

Gmc · Post by **Gmc** » Wed Feb 28, 2007 7:16 pm

RMD wrote:
Gmc wrote:DC looks horrible on my 19" widescreen tft monitor...image is stretched and blurry...probably look better on a widescreen game tho.
Yet on my HDTV, it dont look too bad, a lot down to the fact I can set it to 4:3 ratio
Are you being one of those lamers who watchs there game in a little square in the middle of the tv instead of just streching it?

Not a little square in a orignal resolution, stretched, but with borders on each side - so charcters and things in the game dont look fat :p

xplics · Post by **xplics** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:44 am

I do not want to sound like a total dumb @$$ but is there any link I maybe able to check out for a VGA adapter for my DC if not how can I make this possible to hook my DC to my Sony Brivia HDTV. Thanks in advance.

Red Ronin · Post by **Red Ronin** » Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:29 am

Dreamcast VGA & Widescreen LCD Monitors & HDTV

Dreamcast games look fine on LCD using a VGA adapter. The image is crisp, clear and accurate to the pixel.

I have quite a bit of experience, having played Dreamcast via VGA using LCD projector, large format CRT, regular sized VGA monitors and both 4:3 and widescreen monitors & HDTV.

Nothing messes up the graphics at all. Really old, slow running LCDs (25ms refresh or higher), especialy those 4:3 TV/VGA combos from a few years ago that were in the 12-20" size range, will tend to be a bit murky. Most any display you purchase new today will have less than a 10ms refresh rate so there will be no bluriness or "smoothing" or "ghosting" of aliasing at all.

If the widescreen LCD you use has a VGA port, there will be ZERO problems with video sync. The Dreamcast outputs a true VGA signal, 640x480 pixels, which is recognized by every VGA device in the world (except a small handful of Viewsonic CRTs I tested years ago). I have even used VGA with Dreamcast on an ancient IBM PS/2 VGA monitor with surprisingly good results.

Most widescreen LCD HDTVs will default to showing the Dreamcast video signal centered, with black bars on the left and right. Just go into the options menu for the set and it will likely offer something such as "Autoadjust". Select that option and the image will stretch to fill the screen.

Does this "look good"...? To me it looks absolutely wonderful. Jet Grind Radio, Blue Stinger and Crazy Taxi just simply play and look great. Yes, characters will be moderately squashed, slightly shorter and fatter, but still in proportion with their surroundings, so it is easy to adjust to the viewpoint.

This is a thoroughly subjective matter though... To "purists" such as the others who have posted in this thread, stretching any image is always bad. "OMiGOSH! It's the WRONG ASPECT RATIO!!! Tis the END OF THE WORLD I TELLS YA!"

Whatever.

Some monitors & HDTVs will allow you to instead ZOOM and/or CROP the image. So it remains the same 4:3 aspect ratio, but you loose a little bit of the bottom and top of the visible frame. Sometimes you can even choose whether it is the top or bottom that gets cut off. Other times you can manually adjust the display up or down to fit your preference. If the headsup display for scoring, ammunition, options and whatnot are pushed out to the very edges, then they may get cut off. Also, some in-game menu screens cannot be read fully in this mode.

You can probably find a decent 19-21" Widescreen monitor between $150 and $210 either on sale locally or at online retailers. It is an excellent investment that will do you well. However, if you have in the neighborhood of $450-$600 to spend on the endeavor, there are quite a few very capable HDTVs in the 26-32" size range that offer a whole bunch more options to work with. Take care, happy gaming, enjoy life!

Toyoniya Hiyaku, Noromuoy!

Red Ronin, The Cybernetic Samurai

Cid Highwind · Post by **Cid Highwind** » Tue Mar 13, 2007 3:43 pm

Thanks for all the information!

I've been looking for a nice 20" LCD myself, and I'll probably go with an LG seeing how it's getting pretty good reviews and goes for a nice price. Also, I've seen it in a store and LG has got the best image and colours out of all the monitors. On par with Samsung and Acer.

Meanwhile I've also had the luxury of hooking up my DC to a friend's 19" widescreen lcd. And what surprised me was that when playing Metropolis Street Racer, without the widescreen option being unlocked, I did get a nice wide view without any visible changes in aspect ratio.

What surprised me even more was that Crazy Taxi looked just fine, and it was displayed in widescreen afaik, and the square where you get this tiny view of your destination was still a perfect square.

On top of that, I didn't have to look at this nasty 60Hz